Thommo's perm » Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:42 pm wrote:ycsatbjywtbiastkamb » Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:31 pm wrote:maguskwt » Mon Apr 02, 2012 12:01 pm wrote:Yup blame the spaniard won't you? And defend to the hilt the Brit. Our recent form has nothing whatsoever to do with Reina...
what are you on about? if you read my post i was having a go at both gerrard and reina for being senior players and not stepping up to the plate, nationality has nothing to do with it.
and by the way reina has probably let in 10 goals this season that he should have saved, even at the very start of hodgsons reign we were beating arsenal despite being down to 10 men for most of the game after joe cole was sent off and in the dying seconds of the game reina dropped the ball onto van persie`s head, imo he hasnt been the same keeper since that clanger a season and a half ago.
when you see the vitriolic stick the likes of carroll, henderson, downing, spearing, carragher, kuyt, cole, poulson, aquilani, jovanovich, ngog etc have recieved over the past season and a half for not being at the top of their games i dont see why reina cant accept some mild criticism for not being at his best for practically 2 seasons now.
We have this curious culture that means some are above criticsim yet others are fair game for a public flaying
Pepe was one of the greatest goalies ever to pull on a red shirt and was easily the best in the PL and possibly Europe for a good 5 years.
His halo has slipped of late and we are paying the price. Of course it is not all down to him and that would be a ridiculous statement for anyone to say. But, the way he once commanded the box and stopped shots seems to have gone, at least for this present moment. Whether he will get back to the way he was, or even if he wants to, remains to be seen. This is his darkest hour as a Liverpool player and I hope he comes through it. He could start by issung a public apology for his sending off as it was reckless and silly and could cost us dearly come the end of the season
i`m not sure about a public apology mate, he`s a footballer who made a f**k up not a politician that cost the country billions or started a war or something.
but reina like everyone else in the team has to accept his share of the responsibilty for our league form this season, our recent run is as bad as our worst run in our second division days 60 years ago! kenny has to accept part of the blame too, i dont know if our medical staff are telling him that certain players cant play on certain days because their blood sugar levels are too low or whatever it is they look at but chopping and changing the side every week surely cant be helping, one minute suarez is up front with kuyt, next minute he`s up front with carroll, then he`s up front on his own.....i dont see how that helps us find consistency.
we seem to be changing our side to suit whoever we play, i can see the logic in that if you are playing a stoke or someone but to do it every game just seems reactive, we seem to be reacting to what other teams are doing rather than letting them worry about us.
this is the third season in a row now under 3 different managers that players including senior players have under performed, let their heads drop and felt sorry for themselves. in benitez`s last season gerrard and torres looked not only isolated up front but disinterested too.
when alex ferguson went to united in 86 he came across similar problems for about 3 or 4 seasons but then he made the huge decision to get rid of the stalwarts that had been united`s main performers over the previous 6 or 7 years, players like frank stapleton, norman whiteside, gordon strachan, paul mcgrath, mark hughes (although he came back), remi moses......the only one he kept was bryan robson who was like gerrard figure to the club. the united fans thought ferguson had totally lost the plot, he was selling the players that actually performed week in week out and when fergusons new signings like the british transfer record for a defender gary pallister didnt immediately hit the ground running they wanted ferguson out.
ferguson took over a team that regularly finished 2nd under atkinson ( even in fergusons first season they finished 2nd), sold off the best players and finished 11th and 13th in consecutive seasons, no wonder the flags were out for ferguson.
but ferguson knew that the old guard were good players but they werent winners, they`d spent so many years behind us and everton that they didnt believe they could win the title anymore, if something went wrong they were that used to things going wrong they just accepted the situation and dropped their heads.
it was a close run thing for ferguson, he was one game away from the sack, but he knew what had to be done and had the bottle to do it.
i`m starting to come round to the idea that we need a similar revolution at anfield, over the past 3 seasons too many big name players just drop their heads when things start to go wrong, maybe we need to do what ferguson did, we need self belief and i`m not sure if our old guard have that anymore.
